


Hunter

by laissemoidanser



Series: Hunting notes [3]
Category: True Detective
Genre: AU, M/M, Stripper, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:37:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laissemoidanser/pseuds/laissemoidanser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Translation into Chinese by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/hieroglyphics/pseuds/hieroglyphics">hieroglyphics</a> is now available <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/11938173/chapters/26986590">here</a>! ^_^</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Translation into Chinese by [hieroglyphics](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hieroglyphics/pseuds/hieroglyphics) is now available [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11938173/chapters/26986590)! ^_^

***

 

They are getting closer to the mystery of Emily Kёrf, mile by mile, red light by red light (though these ones Marty occasionally ignores). Thanks to their poor suspect-friend they’ve been able to get some names and hints, enough to establish possible connection to the line of murders and disappearances. They’re hot chasing the light at the end of the tunnel now, on their own terms. The windows in the car are lowered and the radio is playing distantly behind wild whistle of the air current. Marty, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, casually holds the steering wheel with his right hand, puffing smoke from a cigarette in a corner of his mouth, squinting at the hot Louisiana sun as he watches landscape changing outside, revealing to him deceptive beauty of southern comfort. Now that he is suspended, Rust’s style gradually penetrates his way of life. Rust himself is in high feather, “dressed up to kill” just like the night he showed up at Marty’s threshold, and all along the way Marty‘s been fretting about it. “This shit is completely unnecessary”, he would say, angrily switching channels on the radio.

 “I used to work for these guys”, for some reason this time Rust is trying to justify himself. “They help entire organization to move drugs”.

“Yeah, yeah. I've heard that already. You yourself participated in it, ain’t you”.

“Not directly, yeah. At first. I - ”, Rust looks down,  at his hands.

“What?”

“Forget about it. I already told you. I used to work with ‘em”.

Marty shakes his head in mistrust and bites the inside of his lower lip. He feels like he’s endlessly balancing between mystery and the clue to it, somewhere on the verge of the truth, but Rust wouldn’t let him in further. Or it might be that he expects Marty to guess by himself. Sometimes Marty thinks he’s already guessed but still he needs some sort of confirmation. Apparently, Crash didn’t play any important role in the functioning of all the underground movement, but it’s also obvious he somehow managed to bond with that dark world and Rust still can’t let this experience go.

“You sure you wanna go through this again?” Marty looks at Rust anxiously remembering to watch the road from the corner of his eye.

“No”, Rust answers and shifts uneasy in the passenger seat. Marty sighs. _"No"_ he is not sure, but yes, we still going through it anyway. Rust. Always ready to sacrifice, even with no good reason. Just give him the altar, he will offer himself right away. Well, Marty thinks, we’re getting there.

“How do you feel?” he asks in a while. That morning Rust had visions; nothing surprising, common occurrence in his life, but Marty has learned to distinguish the bad ones. Rust sees smells and tastes colors, that’s okay, but when he hallucinates that the pattern on the damn wallpaper form a secret message, and backs into the corner in sheer panic, that’s a big deal.

Rust shrugs his shoulders, watching a flock of birds flying towards the horizon. He is silent, and this kind of silence’s not typical even to his own standards.

Giving up, Marty returns to the contemplation of the road.

Soon they take a turn to a desolate run- down diner, covered either with layers of mud or rust. A crooked faded sign above the entrance reads "J’s"; it sways and creaks slightly in the wind. Marty parks the car right in front of  its muddy windows, so that he can see what’s going on inside. He turns to Rust and Rust looks back at him, then nods slowly, opens the door and gets out.

“Fucking place”, he says before shutting the door. He fetches a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, pulls one out and lights it, his eyes never leaving the diner. There's no one inside, except for the manager who’s wiping the counter. Rust walks towards the door slowly, and Marty watches him like a gold hunter watches his most valuable finding which someone dared to take from his hands. Rust disappears inside, and now can only be seen through the muddy windows. When he walks up to the counter, the manager stops whatever he’s doing, leans forward and says something to him. He stands with his arms wide apart on the both sides of the counter, looking closely at Rust, his whole posture suggests that he knows Rust and hardly holds any feeling of respect towards him. Marty watches Rust’s back as they talk for several minutes, and then the manager shakes his head and goes back to wiping. Marty freezes behind the wheel when two more guys come out of nowhere. They approach the counter, standing each closely by Rust’s side and he’s literally squeezed between their broad shoulders. It was a risky idea from the get-go. Marty slides his hand under the seat and pulls out iron knuckles. It takes few agonizing minutes before he notices the third one – who’s been standing in the dark blind side of the window all this time, and it is him talking to Rust now. Marty notices him only when he comes out into view and joins the rest. The first two guys step aside, but not far, the third one roughly handles Rust and turns him so that they’re face to face, and then violently pushes him on the counter, pressing a hand to his chest. Marty puts the knuckles on and steps out of the car, his lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes full of fierce determination. Whatever happens, he ain’t gonna tolerate it no more.

When he opens the door, he almost rips it off hinges, pauses at the entrance, panting. The assailants turn their heads in his direction, Rust turns in his direction.

“What do you want, man?” One of them asks - the one that grips Rust tightly by his jacket and holds him down, pressing him into the counter with all his weight.

Marty says nothing, only keeps slowly coming at them.

“Hey, hey, easier, tell us what do you want you bastard?”

But Marty isn’t stopping any time soon, comes up to them and crashes his knuckled fist on the abuser’s face, forcing him to lose his balance and fall to his knees. Then Marty grabs him by the collar of his shirt and pulls him up, hits him in the face again and again, blinded by rage. Somewhere nearby, he hears the manager’s shout and the swearing of the two other thugs, then a sound of a double shot and Rust’s quick steps, the shutter of glass, two more shots, all happens while Marty keeps on hitting the hateful enemy, now in a helpless limp beneath him.

“Hey, Marty,” Rust touches him on the shoulder and Marty freezes with his fist raised. Blood drips from the iron knuckles. Rust points a gun to offender’s face and shoots. Marty squeezes his eyes shut, turns away, rage still boiling inside him. “You okay?”

“You asking _me_?”

“Marty”, Rust nods in the direction of the locked door behind the counter.

Marty catches the idea at once. Someone’s in there.  He straightens up, pulls a gun out of his victim’s jacket and cocks it. The silence of now empty diner is filled only with the sound of their panting - two madmen at their crime scene. Marty goes up to the door, all ears, then moves a few steps back, takes aim at the lock and fires. With a ringing click the door handle shatters into pieces. Rust pushes the door and they break inside. Five more guys already hold them at gunpoint, but they are faster - one, two, three, four - all to the head, they are good shots after all and didn’t come unprepared.

There is only one left - an old man in a wheelchair. He looks at them calmly, a gun in his hand, but realizes that it's all over, drops the weapon on the floor and raises his hands above his head.

“Crash, my boy, is that you?” he asks. Marty throws a sideway glance at Rust.

“Shut up, old asshole. Got a couple of questions for you”.

“After all this time, after all you mean to me, you break into my house with a gun? Kill my people?”

“I said, shut up!” Rust points a gun right between the old man’s eyes. “It's all his doing, huh? Human trafficking? Murders? Emily Kёrf? Where is he?”

“Nobody knows where he is now. He’s impossible to find, if he doesn’t want to be found”.

“Enough with this shit. You know, you fuck, you know where he is. We already got all of ‘em who work for him, there’s no escape”.

“You know, Crash, he’s hardly concerned about such trifle things. He's already got what he wanted”.

“Where is he?”

“You can kill me. My time has long past. I won't mind, my boy”.

“Stop calling me that, you piece of shit. Answer the question!”

“Do you want to solve the mystery of Emily Kёrf, little Crash? But _she_ does not exist”.

“What?”

“He, who discloses her secret, will burn to the ground”, the old man grins. “And it all starts again -”.

Suddenly the phone rings. The receiver’s right there, on the table. The old man freezes for a moment, then jerks to the side, trying to reach it first. A shot rings out and a bullet gets him in the temple, immobilizing him forever.

“Rust? What's the fuck’s going on here?”

“We're almost there, Marty. Almost there”.

Rust lifts the receiver carefully and holds it to his ear. On the other side of the line it’s silent for few eternal seconds before a clear male voice breaks through:

“You’ve got her?”

Rust and Marty exchange looks. Someone on the other side is waiting for a response, but when he doesn’t get it, he keeps talking anyway.

“Good. Write the address down”.

Rust picks up a pen from the table and writes on his arm.

The voice repeats the address once, then hangs up.

“Do you know him?” Marty asks.

“No, but we can try to”.

***

 

They’re back in the car parked in front of the diner, Rust copies the address from his hand to his everlasting ledger and on the adjacent page Marty notes the inscription –

_Emily_

_K_ _ё_ _rf_

“I think we flew off the handle a bit back there, Rust”, Marty says quietly.

“Off handle a bit? I originally intended to get the information in a peaceful manner, but you’ve came up with the idea of beating the guy's face into a mess”.

“Peaceful way, is that how it’s called now? You what, was about to let each and every one of them have their fucking way, in exchange for the answer, while possibility of getting one was equal to zero percent?”

“No”, Rust smiles mysteriously and shakes his head. Marty’s heart warms up a little with this kind of smile.

“Do we need to call a crime scene in?”  he asks, his voice softens a bit  this time.

“No, better not have anything to do with it. We haven’t left any traces, all the guns were theirs – just let the cops rack their brains as to who could’ve started the shooting. When they find out all these guys deserve lifetime in prison, they ain’t gonna  dig deep. And we shouldn’t waste time. Gonna need to plan this out and check the address”.

“Sounds good to me”, Marty smiles, too, feeling that a fucking smile is so very irrelevant right now. “Tell me, what were you even hoping for? Surely you expected things to go this way”.

“Luck, I reckon”, Rust shrugs his shoulders. “One day it’s gonna favor me”.

“Fucking psycho. You know what, in this case, you are damn lucky that I favor you”.

Rust puts his hand on Marty’s knee then, squeezes it gently and runs his fingers up his thigh.

“What about you?” he asks.

“What about me?”

“You gonna let me have my way with you? Tonight?”

“I –“, Marty feels dizzy. After everything that happened, what kind of freak he must be if this one makes him hot and hard in an instant. Rust’s fingers move up to his belt, snap the buckle playfully.

“Should’ve seen yourself back there. Those assholes shit themselves, as if an entire army of cops came after them”.

“You were quite not bad yourself”.

“So. What do you say?”

Marty bites his lip, watching Rust’s fingers caress his inner thigh.

“Alright”, he says, not recognizing his own voice. “Alright”.

“You will like it, I promise”.

“I believe you, baby. Let's get out of here”.

 

***

 

They leave the car by the road and are now following a narrow wood trail. Marty had long lost count of how far they had to drive. Their feet rustle through the vast yellow carpet of fallen leaves, spots of green grass picking out of it. However, this place can hardly be called “woods” – it rather resembles a huge neglected garden that took over a small suburban area, once residential. The streets and yards are almost impossible to tell apart, but some of the old, ivy-covered houses still bear signs with numbers on them. Marty and Rust have been roaming here, among huge trees, for hours, checking each house, and Marty can’t help feeling that they are being watched. The treacherous rustle of their steps disturbs complete silence filled only with birds’ chirping somewhere above.

 “I think that’s the one”, Rust points his hand at the dark little house ahead of them. Getting to its front door is about impossible due to the literal _mountains_ of dry leaves heaped on the way and there is no doubt that its human handiwork - all those leaves have been brought here in order to hide the building from prying eyes. By the house a huge tree extended its branches horizontally for at least 50 feet, not a single leaf on it.

“Jesus Christ, why so many goddamn leaves?” Marty grunts, trying to clear the way for both of them.

At the door they freeze, and fear grips Marty, a bad premonition. When he looks at Rust, he realizes he isn’t the only one tormented by it. Rust pulls out a gun, Marty does the same. They stand back to back and look around. But there’s no one in the garden, except for the echoing silence, even the birds stopped chirping at the trees all of a sudden. The sun is setting and a night is about to descend upon the world.

“Okay, Marty”, Rust whispers, but his whisper still breaks out like a shout throughout the garden. “I have a bad feeling about it. We shouldn’t go in through the front door”.

“Why is that?” Marty asks, though he is more than happy to agree.

“What do you think, huh? They tell the address and now waiting there for us to join at the fucking dinner party? Doubt that”.

Marty shrugs his shoulders.

“Far as I was able to observe, windows are boarded up, ain’t no way we can get inside through them”.

Rust breathes in noisily, his nostrils flare; he brings two gloved fingers up to his neck and presses them to his pulse, checking how fast it’s beating. Marty doesn’t need to do that, feeling his heart pounding, huge in his chest.

“See that tree? We could climb on it and try to get to the roof. Then go in through the attic”.  Rust heads back into the yard, holding a gun over his shoulder, and examines a long outstretched branch.

“That crazy fuck”, Marty whispers and for a moment he’s tempted to just turn around, turn the knob and go right in through the front door. What a waste of fucking time....

“So what do you say, Marty, huh?” Rust is already waiting for him by the tree.

_(As if you ever needed my consent)_

“Fine”, Marty steps away from the door and follows him to the tree. Rust climbs up the trunk deftly, Marty feels like a seven-year old child, who conceived a plan to rob neighbors’ garden. In other words, he feels like an idiot. Rust offers him a hand and helps to climb even higher. Further on, they step on one of the impossibly long branches, one by one, they quickly get to the roof of the house, all ivied and mossy and partly fallen in. “Watch out”, Rust warns him when they approach the attic door.

 Rust wraps his fingers around an old rusted handle and pulls at it. The door opens reluctantly with a soul-wrenching moan, and at once they point their guns in perfect synch to the dark void behind it. But inside, no one is waiting for them, except for layers of dust and weak stairs. The staircase turns out to be partially destroyed, so they have to jump to the first floor, like into some sort of a pit. Once they breathe the dust in, both of them start coughing, twice, they breathe in and cover their noses - that acrid stench can’t be confused with anything else; they smelled it so many times at the crime scenes.

“Oh Christ”, Marty feels nausea rolling in. Rust literally crashes into Marty’s back with his shoulder and curses between his teeth. Horrified, they look around to see what’s hidden behind the fallen veil of cobwebs and dust. Marty covers his mouth then and hurries to a rusty sink, bends over it and vomits, feeling as if his guts are turning inside out. Rust stares at the walls, his eyes wide open and he is too startled to even react to what he sees, because, as it is, he always sees so much more.

“Trophies, Marty”, he drawls in horrified astonishment. “That's what they're doing with the chosen girls. They leave ‘em in the woods and hunt ‘em. And then collect the trophies here”.

In response, Marty only grunts miserably and breathes loudly over the sink, unsure whether he should let go off it just yet. He turns his head around towards the front door, intending to get out into the fresh air, and his eyes snatch from the shadows a complex explosive device connected to the door. One turn of the knob and everything here will be blown sky-high.

“Rust!!” he shouts and points to the door.

Rust grasps the situation at once; he rushes to the door and carefully inspects the device. Marty staggers along.

“Fuck, Marty! We can be trapped for all I know. If they figured we were gonna come ... they might as well blow us up together with all the evidence ...”

Marty feels sick again from this horrible realization.

“Goddammit! Rust! Here, that’s exactly what they’ve planned to do with us!”

“Marty. You get out of here, now, and stay on that tree, you hear? If anyone shows up, you let me know”.

“We both need to get out of here right fucking now! What are you even talking about?”

“No. We can’t just let it all go, they gonna blow everything up, and we gonna be left with no fucking evidence. Just five minutes, Marty, and I’ll go after you”.

“No fucking way!” Marty grabs Rust’s arm painfully. “Fucking son of a bitch, what you gonna do is leave here together with me, this very second, you hear me? Fuck the evidence!”

“I can’t, Marty. I gotta go further, I gotta _know_. I just gotta - . Please!”.

“Out of question!”

“Five motherfucking minutes, I beg you, baby, please, wait for me outside”.

“You ...”

“You have my word. I’m gonna be alright”.

And Marty gives in.

He gets out to the roof, to the welcoming fresh air and gets back on the branch, freezes in his tracks halfway through when he spots two men, heading to the house, following the cleared path. Red and blue police car lights are flashing in a distance. Marty’s heart sinks. If they open the door ...

He watches as they approach and prays in his mind like he never did before in his life, for them to go away, sweat beads on his temples and drips down his cheeks and his neck. But they don’t go away; they go straight towards the damn house instead, as if someone tipped them, called them in here. And then Marty realizes. What a perfect way to get rid of the evidence, and two troublesome cops without getting one’s hands dirty. Cops would kill cops. They are getting dangerously close to the door, when Marty jumps from the tree to the ground, landing badly on his right leg. With a groan of pain he straightens up, hides a hand with a gun behind his back. It is dark already and he can hardly tell the faces of the policemen.

“Hey, guys, you don’t wanna open that door!” he says, outstretching his hand in a gesture of warning.

They take aim at him at once, and he understands how stupid it must look – his disheveled state, dirty clothes, wounded leg, he doesn’t even have his lucky police badge and sure looks like a nut job serial killer himself,  jumping on people from the trees, in desperate attempt to save his own skin.

“Who are you, sir?” one of the cops slowly steps towards him, not lowering his gun.

“I just ... don’t go through that door ... there ... explosives, if you open it, everything gonna blow up”.

_(What a mess, if he was that cop now, he would never believe his own words)_

“Hands, sir!”

Marty realizes how ugly the situation is getting. Still clutching the gun, he slowly raises his hands and looks down at the ground.

“Now answer the question. Who are you, sir? What are you doing here? Where did you get the gun?”

“Please, just listen to me - don’t open the damn door! There are explosives!”

He’s dimly aware he was asked to get on his knees and wishes with all his mind power to have this fucking police badge right now. But he left it back at the station at Quesada’s office, on the day when he declared he quit. The officer who addressed him, says something into his radio and walks up to him, Marty’s looking pitifully at the barrel of a gun pointed at him, but the second cop – that asshole, is still at the door, intending to open it.

“Officer Kёrf, should I open the door?” she asks.

“Don’t listen to him, Emily. The guy seems to be a bit off”.

And then something snaps in Marty’s head, he firmly squeezes the handle of the gun he almost dropped, and points it at the cop by the door. He pulls the trigger and Emily falls dead. Then the cop next to him, bullet hit officer Kёrf right between the eyes. Marty hears distant voices, gunshots and feels a sudden sharp pain in his shoulder, dimly realizing that they’re shooting at him. "Fucking door", he screams silently, falling down on the blanket of dead leaves, but footsteps keep passing him by. There is a creaking of the door wide open, a loud flop and then the whole garden lightens up with blinding yellow flash - like fireworks on Christmas night. Marty feels the heat, has time to remember the locker room filled with golden light before everything fades.

***

 

_“So, Mr. Leroy, back to Emily K_ _ё_ _rf case, mystery never solved, is that right?”_

_“Oh, of course it wasn’t. We’ve handed the investigation over to the FBI long time ago, but as far as we know, even they couldn’t figure it out and left things be. It is hard to investigate when you can’t even identify the body, you know – “._

 

Marty turns the radio off, stretches out drowsily and sits up on the edge of the bed. He turns on the lamp on the bedside table and gets lost in thought for a while. Outside the window, the wind is howling, and Marty shivers from cold, rubbing his hands together to warm them up. He extends his right hand to the light and closely examines a bird tattoo on his forearm, like a hunter - his prey.

“We know things about Emily Kёrf, right?” he addresses it, and then turns his gaze to the empty space. “Hope you remember what day it is today”.

He gets dressed, gets his warm coat, a hat, a pair of gloves out of his wardrobe, and steps outside. He wanders slowly, limping, through the blizzard, down the street, turns around the corner and opens the heavy iron door to go in. He is blocked at once by the security guy, but as soon as he takes off his hat and raises his face to the light, the guy steps aside respectfully. “Mr. Hart”, he nods. Marty limps past him further into the club, and is pleased to note that a small crowd already gathered there. He orders a whiskey and hands money to the bartender, but the young man only shakes his head and laughs kindly. “On the house, Mr. Hart”.

Marty get comfortable in his seat and observes. He is indeed the same Martin Hart who once walked into the ill-fated strip bar, however if you look closer, you’ll see a completely different person. And anyone who had known him back then – would hardly recognize him now, because Martin Hart has become a man who knows what he wants. There’s a shadow on him, the shadow of everything he had to go through to find his path and this path had been long and tough, endless miles he followed from far gone childhood days, from Louisiana heat,  here, to the cold and harsh embrace of Alaska. And Marty wears this shadow with pride, with confidence, values each accomplished step. Only now, in his fifties does he fathom a perfect circle, a loop, his life resolve into. And he realizes that everything went down the only possible way it could, the best one, the carefully planned one, designed for his good only. That his life path, from the beginning to the very end is, in itself, a small miracle.

Light illuminates the dim room, and the projectors send it to the stage. The room trembles in anticipation and the audience gets closer. Spotlights snatch a tall, slender figure from the shadows - strong lithe legs in high cowboy boots, leather pants and a vest. He stands with his back turned to everyone, his head turned slightly to the side; his fingers casually hold the corners of his cowboy hat, a pretty white smile plays on his face, showing off dimples on his cheeks.

“Ladies and gentlemen”, he welcomes all the people in the club with his arms wide open, facing them now, the rope on his belt sways and slaps his legs with each graceful swing of his hips. His audience welcomes him back eagerly.

“I know what you’re here for today”, he flirts with them shamelessly pointing at himself, the audience cheers. “But before we begin, let me remind you that today's performance will be dedicated to a very special person, to the founder of this club. We wouldn’t be here today without him. And I owe him my life. That is my dear friend. No, ladies and gentlemen, not just a friend, my dear life partner. Happy Birthday to you, Martin Hart!”

Marty squints when a spotlight hits him and smiles modestly to the sound of applause, watching Rust’s silhouette moving on stage in the cross of bright light. Music starts and the performance begins. Cold wind is howling outside, but inside it’s warm and cozy, and on the street above the entrance a neon sign is glowing "Hart and Cohle’s".

No one will ever learn that Marty has solved the mystery of Crash, he pulled him out of the darkness, having sacrificed a part of himself and a part of Rustin Cohle to it, and among all his interpretations, he’s found one - the most important and the kindest, drawn to the light. Doesn’t matter if sometimes his dreams suddenly turn into nightmares about the bright yellow flash of light, Emily Kёrf’s whisper and long dragging hours under the IV line filled only with machine ticking - it was worth it. Because in the end, he’s saved by the same warm arms.

“Tell me, cowboy, aren’t you tired of this cold yet?”  he asks Rust later that evening. “We’ve already knocked up a fortune. Could go round the world, if you wanna. Any ... any place ... you pick ...”.

 Rust climbs onto the bed, wearing only his black robe and he takes it off on the way. He keeps his hands on his waist, his legs wide apart and towers over Marty like a classical Greek sculpture of beauty. Marty never ceases to amaze how age leaves almost no trace on him.

“Happy birthday”, he smiles and offers Marty a hand. Marty grabs it and Rust pulls him up from the pillows, hugs him softly and Marty hugs him back. And as their hands explore their bodies it looks like two matching birds take off their forearms and chase one another around them, in eternal triumphant flight.

“Everything I need, I’ve found”, Rust whispers, burying his face in the crook of Marty’s neck. “My world has blue eyes, honey sweet taste, and never ceases to shine”.

Their fingers intertwine; their bodies become one, and their lives dissolve forever into a head-spinning eternity, ready to make another full circle any moment in time again, together.

 

< THE END >

 


	2. Hidden secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written as a short spin-off to the "Hunting Notes" series, take it as a deleted sex scene addition. At some point in this part of the story I started approaching bottom!Marty scene but in the end didn't feel like going there and gave up on writing it. Still I felt that the 3d part is lacking in this sense and decided to make this small addition. 
> 
> Warnings for bottom!Marty ahead.

 

 

_“Should’ve seen yourself back there. Those assholes shit themselves, as if an entire army of cops came after them”._

_“You were quite not bad yourself”._

_“So. What do you say?” Marty bites his lip, watching Rust’s fingers caress his inner thigh._

_“Alright”, he says, not recognizing his own voice. “Alright”._

_“You will like it, I promise”._

_“I believe you, baby. Let's get out of here”._

***

“You will like it,” Rust says once again as they enter his house, tired after the crazy day and the shooting and the blood and all the dead bodies they left behind. Yet never did Marty felt so alive and so grateful for staying alive. Never did he dared to breach the border of what’s right so far and now, with Rust, he wants to keep crossing it even further. Marty watches as Rust throws the keys on the kitchen counter, watches Rust looking at him in expectation, unguarded for a fleeting second. Rust steps closer, a mischievous smile on his lips, an obvious desire to keep his partner in crime by his side all night. As if that ever bothered Marty before. But now he feels a little uneasy. "You gonna let me have my way with you?" is flashing in his head in Rust’s voice and he has to admit, no matter how hard it may be, that in terms of "letting and giving" he’s no more an expert than a virgin. Marty’s never let anyone this close before, although he entertained the idea of probability in his most heated fantasies.

“Okay, I’m gonna trust you on this, ” he says, and his voice sounds weak as the words slip and fall past his lips. Rust puts a hand on his shoulder then, moves it up to his neck, brushing his cheek with his thumb, grants his lips with a quick feathery kiss.

“Wanna have a drink?” he suggests as he pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up.

Marty shrugs. He’s trying to appear calm.

“Just one, maybe. Don’t wanna get shitfaced, like we did that last time.”

“Just one then,” Rust agrees, keeping the cigarette between his teeth. He opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of whiskey.

“You keep it in the damn fridge? Really?”

“Ah? Fuck, yeah, I suppose I do. Thing is, I tried to hide it from myself”.

“Well, ain’t that a poor place choice, buddy.”

“There’s a popular belief, you know? If you wanna hide something, put it in the most obvious place”.

“Don’t bullshit me. You sure aren’t the one to believe in this”.

“I don’t believe, but I do practice sometimes”, Rust chuckles.

He gives Marty a glass and pours some whiskey in it.

“I need you sober”.

Marty drinks his whiskey up in one nervous gulp and steals a look at Rust who drinks greedily, without a pause. He lowers his glass, glances back at Marty, a temper in his eyes.

In their bedroom, still devoid of most common furniture sets, with the exception of the new wardrobe, Marty gets undressed.

"Take off everything," Rust says, those eyes never leaving Marty.

He does as he’s told, gets down on the damn mattress, turns on his stomach, feeling utterly exposed. Rust bends over and settles down right after him, with his knees on either side of Marty’s body. He is naked up to the waist; Marty can sense tight wiry fabric of his jeans rubbing against his skin.

Rust leans close to his ear, "You’ve got nice thighs," he says in a whisper sugary sweet, mapping them with his hands and gently pushing them apart. A shiver runs through Marty’s back, he knows that Rust’s smiling when he feels his hot breath just above his nape, where he trails kisses while his hands keep exploring the lines of Marty’s body, voluntarily offered to him.

"Relax," Rust whispers, his breathing quickens. Still in his jeans, he’s rutting gently against Marty’s ass, taking unabashed pleasure in it. "So good, so good, Marty," he moans breathlessly in his ear and Marty himself begins to fire up despite his uneasiness. He lets out a moan, barely audible. "Fuck, I could get off on this without taking my pants off, just by looking at you, baby," Rust says, rising up on his knees. "But I want you to enjoy it just as much".

“Already do,” Marty answers, suddenly aware of how hard he is against the mattress. Through the jeans he feels the line of Rust’s dick too, and is ready to believe his words.

Rust reaches out and fetches a small bottle of oil from under the mattress. When he pops it open, the air is immediately filled with peculiar sandalwood aroma.

“Where did you get this shit?” Marty asks, looking over his shoulder when Rust begins to take the rest of his clothes off and then lowers himself back over him, rubbing the oil between his palms, an enigmatic smile crosses his lips in response.

“Fucking romantic,” Marty shakes his head and gets back to the contemplation of the pillow pattern when warm hands come in contact with his tense shoulders. “But that sure is a nice idea,” he says in approval and sighs with pleasure. Rust massages his back gently, skillfully relieving all the tension there, down the back of his neck. Damn, Marty doesn’t even remember the last time he felt so good, with all his muscles relaxing at last and his skin getting soaked in the blissfully intoxicating smell. “Feels so fucking good, Rust,” he honestly admits.

“I know,” Rust presses his thumbs into the spot between his shoulder blades and Marty forgets all his fears. Cloud nine of pleasure. When he’s completely relaxed, Rust guides his index finger along the line of his spine, pausing just by the dimples on his lower back, where he knows his touch would awoke a tremor of excitement. Marty bites the edge of the pillow when Rust’s hands leave his upper back completely and travel farther down. It’s not a relaxing massage anymore, and they both silently agree on this. Every touch of the skillful fingers resonates directly to Marty’s dick and he shifts on his stomach uncomfortably, shoots a glance at Rust over his shoulder, but he is too immersed in the process to notice.

His touch is more insistent now, imprinting white traces on the soft wet skin as his palms slide even lower, to the curve of Marty’s ass, pushing his asscheeks apart and guiding his fingers between them. Marty’s breath jolts and deepens. He almost fails to notice when one finger slides inside of him, so easily, that he becomes aware of it only when Rust starts to move it in and out, swiftly, slightly curving it inside.

"Rust - ," Marty is very close all of a sudden, he forgot how much he likes what Rust’s doing to him, forgot that one time he told him about his pleasurable encounter with that girl back in -... Rust pushes second finger in and Marty half gets up on his knees against his own will, it seems more than he can possibly handle. Rust’s stroking his back with his free hand, soothing him, "Just a little bit more, a little more," he whispers, spreading his fingers inside, hitting the prostate mercilessly.

Marty gives up and gives in to the craving of his own body then, pinning down all his pride and pushing back on those nimble fingers, taking them in, as far as possible , where he’s so hot and where even the fingers of that girl didn’t dare to touch him. Forget about pride and ask for more. And he asks, hardly had he allowed the thought to cross his mind, and it already falls from his lips in a plea. This Marty no one else has seen. No one else will ever see, as he is tucked away deep in the long-forgotten memories of what is love and tenderness. But still Marty needs them badly, as much as he needs Rust. Rust slows down for a moment, maybe, he can feel it too, Marty - completely in his power, Marty - an open book with blank pages only for him to fill.

“I'm here...," Rust says. “I’m here” and slowly, he enters him, filling him utterly, covers his dick with his hand and suddenly he’s so much, all around and inside, a solid flash of pleasure, love and affection. Marty closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, till colorful spots are blossoming under his lids. He surrenders to Rust completely, arching his back, moving with him, pushing into his hand. They fall in perfect rhythm, their breathing merges in perfect harmony. “Take me, just take me,” Marty thinks as he opens his eyes and turns his head slightly, eyes meet Rust’s.

"More...," he demands under his breath, becomes aware of the sound of Rust’s body slamming into his, and all he wants right now is to become one with this dazzling creature that he had lured so deep under his skin. They are burning together in one perfect high, coming together, and gradually slide back to reality, waiting till their bodies stop to move. They fall down on the cold side of the mattress. Rust pulls out and wraps his arms around Marty, cuddling to him. Marty imagines he won’t make it if Rust lets him go even for a mere second. But Rust is right beside him; his warm breath tickles his neck.

Outside the window - full moon - scattered its pale silver rays all over the emptiness of their bedroom, gently touching their heated bodies.

"Look, it’s so huge today," Marty says.

"Mmmhhm", says Rust .

They drift to sleep. Sandalwood morning is lowering upon them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
